Simply Inspired

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long. ~ Leonard Bernstein

I think that most writers who wait until they’re inspired to write are just waiting for the fear to subside. ~ Barry Mann

I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning. ~ Peter De Vries

Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every day American publishers. ~ Alma Gluck

Women who are inclined to write poetry at all are inspired by being mad at something. ~ Amy Clampitt

It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy. ~ Groucho Marx

No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you’ll see why. ~ Mignon McLaughlin

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Look at any inspired painting. It’s like a gong sounding; it puts you in a state of reverberation. ~ Philip Guston

Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower! ~ Jim Carrey

Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses of one’s dreams. In what other way can one deal with them? Unless the content of the dream rightly understood is inspired by alien spirits, it is part of my own being. ~ Sigmund Freud

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason. ~ Andre Gide

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. ~ Ernest Newman

These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig. ~ Alfred Hitchcock

I could never tell where inspiration begins and impulse leaves off. I suppose the answer is in the outcome. If your hunch proves a good one, you were inspired; if it proves bad, you are guilty of yielding to thoughtless impulse. ~ Beryl Markham

It’s not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line. ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors… But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity. ~ Claud-Adrian Helvetius

Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire. ~ Confucius

You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men. ~ Max Beerbohm

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known. ~ Garrison Keillor

That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not. ~ James K. Feibleman

Quotes are nothing but inspiration for the uninspired. ~ Richard Kemph

About This Site

This site offers a daily column on current events, and unlike other blogs, in long form. Short posts pointing to this and that and saying "Oh my!" seems a bit lazy. Columns here are an attempt to think things through. If you'd like to come along for the ride, fine. If you have neither the time nor patience for that, that is also fine - you can click on the LINKS tab at the top of the page and visit the sites that offer quick hits. Those provide the raw material for the analyses here.

The views here are mine alone, save for the occasional column from Ric in Paris or comments from key readers, like Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, and others.

Commentary and guest columns are posted here, but there is a sister site, Just Above Sunset Photography, where images are far more important than words. That site is updated daily. Take a look.

JUST ABOVE SUNSET has been online, in various formats, since May 2003. Click on the ABOUT tab at the top of the page for more on that, and a note on who I am.